


Outcasts

by Jestersnthieves (Lunarflare14)



Category: Fallout (Video Games), Fallout 3
Genre: Comfort/Angst, F/M, Hugs, Pairing Is There If You Squint, Trouble On The Homefront, Vault 101
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-21
Updated: 2014-07-21
Packaged: 2018-02-09 19:57:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,169
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1995855
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lunarflare14/pseuds/Jestersnthieves
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Charon knew his boss was called the Vault Dweller. He never thought on it too hard. Seemed that fate would make them both strays in the end.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Outcasts

My mistress was a tough broad by the time she bought my contract. With the death of her pops already behind her, there wasn‘t much that phased her anymore. She dug a bullet out of her leg with a combat knife--didn’t even flinch as she stitched it back up. Disarmed a nuclear bomb without breaking a sweat. Shot Moriarty right between the eyes when he hit Nova. Some brains splattered on her cheek but she didn‘t seem to notice. My grotesque appearance didn‘t rattle her at all. In fact, she seemed to prefer to have me close. I had never seen her cry, not even after Dogmeat died. She had him stuffed and set in her house in Megaton.   
  
The girl was lucky I got her out of that purifier in time before the radiation killed her. She didn’t exactly have a death wish. It was just that no physical pain seemed matched the emotional scars she carried with her. She didn‘t talk about it most days. But when I had to put her on the edge of consciousness with painkillers, so I could get at a particularly tricky bullet, she‘d mumbled things and I knew she was back at the purifier that first time. Banging on the glass, pressing madly at the switch to the hatch.  
  
“I can see him… Get him out… Won’t somebody help him… Please… He’s right there… Somebody… Dad… ”   
  
She’d wake up from the stupor staring at me. As if asking how long I’d been there. I never told her I didn’t leave her because of the dreams. I mean, how many times had I woken up screaming to find her at my side? All the bodies. The people I had killed, the looks of betrayal in the eyes of people I once called friends as they lay dead, the accusing stare never leaving their eyes. She knew somehow and understood I needed her then. I’d never been treated this way by a human before. Like I was someone cared about and appreciated. Anytime I was hurt she insisted to treat it right away. I told her that minor scraps healed fast for Ghouls, but she never listened. I was happy to drink the irradiated water. It didn’t bother me. But she insisted on purified for the both of us. Who was I to refuse my employer?  
  
The Wastes had beaten out the pain of her body but not her giant heart.  
  
We scavenged, kicked what remained of the Enclaves ass when we stumbled upon them. Sometimes she’d go out alone -not far because she had this funny notion in her head that I worried about her.   
  
But one time she came back… Different. It wasn’t with the usual whoop or curse indicating good or bad. It was silent. The soft shut of the door drifting closed on its own. When I didn’t hear her foot steps on the stairs I left my room and made my way to the living room. She stood just by the door, perfectly still.  
  
I stopped dead at the sight of her; her face was covered with dirt and dust as always… But there was also blood. She’d never looked so terrified of it the stuff. “Charon…” It was soft, and needy. I was a little scared. “I went back in.” She whispered.  
  
“What?”  
  
“The Vault… Amata was calling me… I went back in.” I walked to her and guided her to the couch. She sat, stoically staring at the floor. “I picked up the Emergency signal on my Pipboy… Amata needed me and I went but… But…So many people died. Most of the survivors blamed me for what happened. The Overseer cracked down and some people rebelled. Paul-” She stopped and looked at me, wide eyed, “Did I ever tell you about Paul?”   
  
“No.”  
  
“He’d been my boyfriend. When I had to escape he‘d stayed behind to fend off the radroaches that were sweeping in. Yelling for me to go and he‘d follow. I figured the Overseer had got him but--it was those fucking insects that killed him. They killed so many. Between the Overseer and the bugs, there were hardly any people left down there. So many, and Amata--” She burst into tears then, burying her face in her hands. She’d never cried before... This was bad. I wasn’t her. I couldn't be her. “I’m sorry.” She sniffed, “I- I killed the Overseer. I had to. He would have killed them all. He’d gone mad with power. He needed to be stopped. Amata knew that but-- I can't go back…” She looked at me then, her tear filled eyes lost. She got the most devastated look on her face that just broke your heart. The one that tells you she can’t go home. She doesn’t have one anymore. That was the first time I hugged her. It was the first time she’d needed it. I’d never hugged any of my employers before this either and I was hesitant. But once my arms were around her shoulders I had to fight against the impulse to push her back.   
  
“There… Wasn’t anything you could have done to change that.”   
  
“They were all I had left. Even with my father’s passing, I knew… They were out there and as safe as they could be in this shit hole. That somewhere I had friends… Now I-” She buried her face in my shirt, clutching it for dear life.  
  
“You have me.”  
  
She snorted. “Like you have a choice.”  
  
“You‘d be my choice. I’d be happy to be employed by you ‘til the day I die.”   
  
I didn’t know it until I said it. But once I did it was true. She looked up at me with those big blue eyes as if to say that those words meant everything to her. I was looking at the girl from the Vault then. Not the Wastelander woman she was when I met her down in Underworld, who‘d gone to hell and back and never so much as blinked. She was a teenager scared and alone in a big crazy world that crushed the goodness out of it before it could spread. I had not known her then, but I could see that girl now and it only made me want to protect her. Because I needed to protect that goodness. That big heart that just reached out to others and never stopped reaching. She obviously couldn‘t keep it safe on her own.   
  
I wiped the last of her tears away. “They will call you a hero someday, Vault Dweller.”  
  
She slipped her arms around my waist and hugged me for a long moment before she got up, probably to go get a shower. But when she reached the bottom of the stairs she turned around, and rushed back, pressing her lips to my cheek sweetly. “Thank you.”   
  
That was the first time I’d ever been thanked, even by her. The girl was going to kill me with her kindness.


End file.
